


in the metaphorical heart

by JadeClover



Series: star-hewn colossi [19]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Druids Benignly Being Creepy Magical Constructs, F/M, Loyalty, POV Outsider, Undefined/Implied Relationship, Watching Someone Sleep, mental programming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 01:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13307817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeClover/pseuds/JadeClover
Summary: Late at night, a lone druid stumbles upon an unexpected situation. Later that night, a general does as well.An exploration of sleep, trust, and matters of the metaphorical heart.





	in the metaphorical heart

**Author's Note:**

> This one was _really_ interesting to write, and kind of an experiment with point-of-view. I had a lot of fun with it, and I actually like how it turned out.
> 
> I personally imagine that druids don't have names, but I like to call this one Timothy :3

To find the High Priestess here should not be unexpected. It is _her_ office, and many nights see her in its occupance while the rest of her labs grow quiet with disuse. This druid is one trusted with the tasks of the night cycle, a strangely contrary existence while his brethren take leave to replenish their minds, but a solitude of being he found his nature wholly suited for. It is late, the hallways still and dark—and thus he is about.  
  
He comes to her office for its records terminal, intent only on clarifying a set of statistics from deep within her archives. His very nature gives him permission to enter; the door slides open with merely a touch—but he freezes.  
  
The sight before him stops him a _wall._  
  
One tick. Two.  
  
His instincts _fail_ him, that perennial fight-or-flight gone. He is designed to assess danger, to analyze threat, but _is_ this danger? What _is_ it? His mind whirls, but the thoughts scatter and fragment into pieces like a console screen spilling out _error-error-error._  
  
A forceful tug puts him in command of his own consciousness again. Quintessence unfurls in his limbs like the way a living creature takes a breath to steady itself. He stops, _thinks._  
  
A sharp thread of something potent weaves through him, trickling almost like a physical sensation, drawing his mind back to old, youthful imaginings of what adrenaline might feel like in the veins of mortals. But that is irrelevant— _he_ is in command, not chemicals in flesh and blood. He takes control, his surprise subdued at last, and turns his mind to analysis.  
  
This... is unprecedented. He has never encountered such a sight before, but has another? His thoughts itch to reach out—as druids are designed to outsource information—but the urge to seek another mind stops as short and as suddenly as if he had grabbed it by its robes.  
  
_No. This is vital,_ whispers the force at the core of his being. _This is a secret to be kept._ But why? The druid takes the last half-step through the aperture, allowing the door to finally snick shut at his heels.  
  
He tilts his mask, gaze locked to the subject in question. Strains of his programming stir, coiling and burning as if electric, wailing imperatives like a siren on alarm, and he _does not understand._ A stray trail of consciousness, one not embroiled in futile, self-chewing analysis, turns inward to poke and prod at his own being. _Why?_ he asks. _What is this?_ If he is to act accordingly, he must _know._  
  
_Haggar. Protect Haggar._  
  
Again, that sharp flood of some disquieted energy, a desire to act, to _react,_ but he tames it and tamps it down. Tilting his mask the opposite way now, he studies the High Priestess again, ticks passing both too slowly and too quickly all at once, his need to act protesting the even greater need to assess and process data.  
  
Is she in danger?  
  
_Extrapersonal / medical / emotional / mental?_  
  
No... that is not right.  
  
No danger exists here—only the potential. She is _vulnerable._  
  
His thoughts skitter to a halt, his quintessence field folding in close and darkening. The High Priestess he knows would never allow herself to be vulnerable. This druid prides himself on analysis before conjecture, but in this, reason slips through his grasp like air. Still, he was trained by and created from a scientist; brushes with the unexplainable are what he is meant for.  
  
Whatever the nature and cause of this state the High Priestess is in, he can only conclude she did not intend it. And from there—the _cause?_  
  
( _Extrapersonal / medical / emotional / mental?_ )  
  
That danger-sense quiets only under a forceful smothering of thought. There _is_ no danger. He is aware of the surroundings, and no interloper lurks nearby. If this was a tampering by an outsider, they are long gone... but their involvement in any degree is unlikely. ( _Extrapersonal - > medical?_) A sweep of his senses takes measure of her vital signs, the results slotting neatly into place, familiar to a degree that they comfort him, if somewhat slowed from the standards he memorized from the Altean medical archives. Whatever this state she is in, it was caused by no immediately-perilous toxin. ( ~~ _Medical._~~ )  
  
Perhaps the room has bio-monitors to consult, a record of when this unnatural change occured... but he would need her permission to access them...  
  
Yet again, his thoughts draw to that ingrained instinct to reach his mind out and gain knowledge from others.  
  
He tamps down on it— _violently._  
  
But is that in error? His attention flicks to the other two danger-queries, but they skim through his thoughts only briefly. Could her state be caused by emotional distress? A kind of mental... anomaly? He knows not what emotions flow through the High Priestess's being, but in his understanding of mortals ( _which he must, unfortunately, classify her as_ ), they experience bright waves of joy or painful jags of fear and panic, or perhaps the draining, listless effects of despair. ( _He has, in his ready admittance, scarcely observed their behavior._ )  
  
Despair may cause physical languor, yet the High Priestess is not prone to it. She is only ever sharp, singularly driven, even in the face of failure and impossibility, and the fog of the druid's personal assumption may begin to seep in here, but he cannot fathom one in the thrall of distress and hopelessness ever being so... peaceful ( _to his unbiased visual assessment_ ).  
  
No. That cannot be it.  
  
Again comes the itch to spread free from the confines of his own mind, and this time, given power enough to reach into his own code and subvert the programming, he abandons an instinctual need for security and enters a dark mindscape as closely tempered to order as he can make it.  
  
Slowly, methodically, he reaches the conscious layer of his self out and skims it over the outer reaches of his brethren. Brief flashes of being make their way to him, but he casts them aside in favor of the knowledge plucked from within. He finds it in some third-hand confirmation— _this state? It is normal._ Plunging deeper, reaching for a source: The druid he pulled from has made a specialty out of watching prisoners. Mortal beings do this regularly; it is _normal._ The quiet, unconscious confidence in that slew of half-transfered memories settles a prickling worry in this druid's core.  
  
This state is merely a... _condition_ of mortals.  
  
He had not wanted to think Haggar was mortal enough to need it.  
  
But the empirical cannot lie in this, the evidence fully stacked, the conclusions already drawn. It may be an unlikely aberration, a rift in a worldview unprepared for such a change, but the druid cannot deny that the High Priestess, she of a Thousand and One Names, the Star-Wright and the Sunderer of Worlds, has curled up in a chair, closed her eyes, and fallen asleep.  
  
_Mortals,_ he almost thinks before he remember who he maligns with that careless thought.  
  
Drifting closer, his mask angles further, what passes for eyes following the limp curl of her body, the stilled hands, the slow breathing, a face free from all expression... The sight, an anomaly, as rare as it is frightening, as unsettling as it is intriguing, draws his mind like nothing else, capturing his thoughts like the intricacies of experiments but laced deeper with some aspect words cannot describe.  
  
Slowly turning like cogs in a machine, his thoughts at last churn out a single, summary observation: She is entirely unaware of her surroundings.  
  
How... _odd._  
  
A step closer, but only a step—he dares not tread further. Haggar may be asleep, may be _vulnerable,_ but she is not benign.  
  
_Teeth,_ he thinks. ( _She has them._ ) And claws. (Fingernails, _in truth, because a scientist must acknowledge that differences do remain._ )  
  
( _They are still deadly._ )  
  
The raw, consumptive power of flame comes to mind, and the incomprehensible power of that flame in a star's fusion-reactor core. There is enough raw magic in her to shape the universe.  
  
Even when sleeping, that power and the instinct with which she wields it makes her a dangerous creature—beyond comprehension, just like that theoretical star. ( _He is proud at that, but it is an incongruous feeling. The High Priestess needs neither his pride nor his approval._ )  
  
Stepping too close may draw her attention, her ire; he may lose his life in that attempt.  
  
Yet more than that, his mind is whispering not to wake her. Sleep is necessary for mortal existence. To disturb her rituals of self-sustenance, however ill-timed and mislocated they may be, is a crime against his being and the programming therein.  
  
( _He is programmed for self-preservation, but strangely, as he studies again the odd_ softness _of her sleeping form, that fatal prospect muffles under a blanket of quiet, heavy calm._ )  
  
What he must do is clear. Unconscious, unaware, Haggar is frighteningly vulnerable, and to that his instincts are a screaming chorus of, _Protect!_ They need not command him so insistently; even if his entire being was not branded with that imperative, he would have done no differently. Does his own subconscious truly think him so disloyal as to ignore her when she requires aid?  
  
As a courtesy, or perhaps an administrative necessity, a brief tendril of thought coils out toward one of his fellows. This one—a specific druid—was to expect his presence in a varga to perform a study, but _priority calls._ That one will understand; he is written just the same. Protection takes precedence, unless directly ordered not to protect. _Find another,_ whispers the impression of his thoughts to his kin. _I have met a distraction._  
  
A brief coil of understanding returns—acknowledgment—but that is all he leaves room for, closing off his mind as though somehow it is a conduit into the room and not merely into him. _Secret,_ that programming insists. _Protect._ He will abide.  
  
Would that he could close off the room itself, but to alter the environment is beyond him. The door will have to suffice. Even the idea of raising a magical barrier is met with a prickling disapproval, eerily similar to Haggar's own thought patterns as it informs him chidingly, _A waste._  
  
Haggar despises waste. To stand guard will have to be enough.  
  
At last parting his gaze from the High Priestess, he drifts into the far corner of the chamber, angling himself outward to face it. Haggar is centered within his vision, though from this vantage her hood hides much of her face. The door is similarly easy to watch—no one will enter without his knowledge.  
  
The chamber is secure.  
  
Safe and undisturbed, Haggar may sleep as long as she wishes. The druid briefly considers skimming for knowledge of Altean sleep cycles, but it is irrelevant. However long she remains unconscious, he will remain on guard. It is as simple as that.  
  
Stilling his mind to a practiced mixture of awareness and thought, observation and stasis, he settles in to wait.  
  
He is not expecting the hiss of the door opening.  
  
All at once, dormant functions return to life, but he does not move an inch, all senses immediately fixating on the figure in the door, threat calculations running as easily as if the mere sight of Haggar asleep had not reduced them to non-functionality less than a varga before.  
  
The High Priestess keeps her lock settings severe—none but her druids have access to most chambers—except this intruder is no druid. To identify him takes but a fraction of a tick, and then the druid's core stills.  
  
Perhaps the name _intruder_ is not entirely accurate.  
  
_Interloper,_ yes, but as the lock settings have not been heightened to account for Haggar's vulnerable state, the soldier in the doorway crosses no limits by entering. Tall and stoic, as many Galra soldiers are, this one is nonetheless familiar. He has the proper codes. He has permission.  
  
The druid knows this one.  
  
General Raht.  
  
_This one._  
  
The general fails to notice the druid's presence in the corner, but his soldier's instincts do not abandon him. His eyes sweep by habit over the room, but surprise injects itself, a jagged rippling of the general's quintessence as his gaze alights on Haggar. He goes very, very still.  
  
Had the general thought to look just a bare fraction further, he would have seen the druid in the corner. ( _A dangerous oversight._ )  
  
Raht's thick brows furrow, his gaze sharp and confused and rife with _something else,_ something _strange_ in its depths, a shade of emotion for which the druid has never needed a name. A datapad hangs forgotten in the general's mechanical hand, likely the business for which he came to this place. His metal boots stay rooted to the floor, time slipping away as he stares—( _though in reality, it is no more than a dobosh_ )—then, at last, some mortal instinct bids him to step in, the door sliding shut behind him with a final clunk- _hiss_ of components.  
  
Raht has not taken his eyes from Haggar. The druid's gaze has never left him.  
  
Again comes that unusual rush of focus like adrenaline in creatures of flesh and blood. This time, it manifests itself as _magic,_ bright in the druid's mind, a familiar power that coils tight in the confines of his constructed limbs. Galran eyes may be made to catch the slightest movement, but he can keep his form stiller than that, instinct learned millennia ago and passed down through his kin, that quiet imperative telling him to keep surprise if he needs it.  
  
His lines of thought have stripped themselves down to their base code:  
  
_...Threat?_  
  
( _...Threat?_ )  
  
No conclusion. No action.  
  
Raht ( _the druid thinks with a bitterness he allows only in the farthest corner of his mind_ ) has ever been an _enigma,_ has he not?  
  
This druid cannot bring himself to think Raht truly means ill, but instinct is code and code is instinct, and neither can be separated from the need that bids him to ensure the general is given no opportunity to harm Haggar, should he flaunt established knowledge and so foolishly wish to do so. By design, even the fleet's strongest cannot match the power of a druid. At this small distance, a flash of magic could strike far quicker than Raht could ever draw a weapon and cross the room, and even if Raht was to move closer—  
  
_—which he does—_  
  
Raht stops mid-motion, slipping for a half-tick into the familiar stance of a soldier threatened, but then his muscles loosen and his shoulders uncoil, and with a wary blink, he lets himself relax. Sharp golden eyes fix to the corner.  
  
So the druid has been spotted.  
  
To the druid's many layers of senses, Raht's demeanor has the ease of something natural. No fear, no aggression. Raht watches the druid but appears not to consider him a threat. ( _Bravery? Or bravery's foolhardy counterpart? The druid does not like to be underestimated._ )  
  
( _But he is_ not _a threat unless provoked._ )  
  
Whispers of rumor between the incautious minds of his fellows have lent the impression that this one is more at ease among their kind than most. ( _Perhaps he learned it from Haggar?_ ) Never before has circumstance conspired to let this druid observe the anomaly firsthand, but tentatively, he would concur. Unlike the standard behavior of any Galra soldier found within Haggar's labs, Raht makes no attempt to interact, to offer his voice and explain away his presence, or to seek an exit like so many who decide they would much rather be anywhere but here. _Confidence_ —the general is secure, both in the datapad that brings him here and his own permission to enter the room.  
  
It is no show of false bravado. One who does no wrong has no reason to fear... or so the maxim goes.  
  
_Raht._ The druid knows this one. Haggar chose to extend a rare trust to the general, and though the druid has consistently and completely failed to rationalize her decision, if Raht is trusted, then Raht will be allowed to remain. He has the access codes, does he not? That means this permission was given by Haggar herself... and Haggar, at least, can be trusted. Even if the druid could turn Raht away without going against her decrees, there is business to be done. That datapad in his hand—a report to be delivered? Haggar receives many reports, and many are from unlikely sources. To interfere with Haggar's work is anathema; it goes against his nature, his reason for existence.  
  
The punishment for such a crime is an end to said existence.  
  
Raht turns back to Haggar. With slow, careful steps, he ventures farther into the room, skirting around the chair where she sleeps and keeping a careful distance. His pace is tentative until he must walk directly to the far side of the chamber, at which point he angles his shoulders to watch her the whole way as though she is some bizarre sight that will vanish if his gaze parts for a single tick. Tilting his mask, the druid follows the general's progress, but a simple adjustment to the parameters of his "eyes" gives him the additional range to keep Haggar in sight as well. She is still unaware, her eyes closed...  
  
Sleep is a strange and _terrifying_ thing. ( _Does she dream? What of? Is it any better than nothingness?_ )  
  
Raht turns away at last when necessity dictates he must face the counter, sparing a brief, cursory glance to ensure his datapad goes where he intends. It is placed, but after a tick, he lingers, his head bowed, his brows drawn.  
  
...He has completed his business. Will he not leave?  
  
Several long moments pass, punctuated by the barely-audible hiss of a mechanical hand curling and loosening again, and he turns back to Haggar. The look on his face...  
  
Druids rarely concern themselves with the facial expressions of those species who have them, but something in this one strikes an almost familiar chord. Perhaps the general is not so strange... _to a degree._ Haggar is a figure from legend, her power nigh unfathomable to any who knows the methods of it—what must it be like to one who does not? To see her silent, restful, unresponsive... It is strange, it is _wrong,_ but that is precisely why it draws the eye, why it reaches in and stirs something in code or instinct or in one's metaphorical heart.  
  
_Raht..._ This one is trusted, but to earn the trust of Haggar is unfathomable. Druids have it only by their obedient nature, but beyond that... only one other has ever had it in this druid's lifetime, and Raht is not the Emperor, nor is he a known quantity—he is _unpredictable._  
  
Here, Raht faces an anomaly; what will he do?  
  
Near silent footfalls bring Raht closer to Haggar. With each step, that magic in the druid's limbs coils again, hard-coded instinct whispering, _Protect,_ even from threats that may not exist— _should_ not, if Raht is trusted. Haste would be in error, and the druid keeps that magic close and quiet, unseen—he _observes._  
  
Now Raht is almost at her side, his towering, armored frame too strange a dichotomy with one so small and curled and cloaked in cloth. ( _Is he too close? ...Inconclusive._ ) Something about her still form seems to captivate him. His hand—the flesh one—twitches and raises, almost as if it means to touch...  
  
—and _that_ would be too much. Permission for physical contact must be granted by Haggar herself. Such an action cannot be tolerated.  
  
( _And any who forget she is a burning star deserve their fate._ )  
  
Raht's expression goes strange and soft, a moment in which every facet of that look reflects behind his eyes, fractaling farther until it is too deep to be seen, too wrought to untangle. Only several ticks later does the druid realize Raht's breath has caught in his chest, but Raht's hand goes no farther; the fingers curl as he drops it back to his side.  
  
( _So he understands._ )  
  
Raht steps back, and before the druid's very gaze, a weight lifts from his shoulders, some manner of his entire being shifting. His eyes linger on Haggar a moment more... then like nothing out of the ordinary is occurring in this room, he turns and starts for the door.  
  
The druid, perhaps, has been forgotten... as unlikely as it may be. Only once Raht is past the threshold does the general look back, his eyes a flash of gold in the dim, though in the fraction of a tick before the door swallows his figure, it is plain who the look is meant for.  
  
And with that, Raht is gone.  
  
_Interesting._  
  
Gaze still on the door, the druid lets his thoughts spin into the familiar patterns of data processing. Raht... his actions... his mannerisms... they cycle through a mind created specifically for the analysis of data, disparate pieces attempting to arrange themselves into a coherent whole. _Inconclusive,_ his mind returns, over and again. _Inconclusive._ But it is not meant to yield true results; the druid knows his opinion will never be consulted on this matter. Personal understanding, however, is a skill encouraged by his order, a tenet of a thoughtful mind. He mulls over the data, and quietly, some part of him appends small, qualitative observations to an incomplete comprehension of the whole.  
  
The picture becomes clearer, and perhaps is it not so difficult to fathom why Haggar has placed her trust in Raht.  
  
_Inconclusive,_ says the druid's mind... but he cannot say Raht erred.  
  
The general does not return. For more three vargas, the druid waits, but no other incursion interrupts the quiet stillness of a room that may as well have curled up and gone to sleep itself. Refined quintessence still runs through the walls, bright in his mind. The hums and ticks of a system in constant motion still sound, but no disruption occurs that would require the druid to turn his gaze and pay focus.  
  
Then, she stirs.  
  
Her process of waking is nearly as interesting to watch as the blankness of sleep. Life returns to dormant limbs, slowly at first and then in an instant, an uptick in vital signs as she lurches upright, her eyes narrowed and roving across the room as though unaware of her surroundings, fists curling on the arms of the chair and only loosening when she recognizes the empty chamber and the life-presence of her druid to the side.  
  
She blinks... and blinks again.  
  
( _Disorientation. A query across the web of druidic minds, and he receives for his curiosity an impression of subjects in darkened cells, woken suddenly, confused and listless until their minds realize they are awake and must again begin to function._ )  
  
( _Haggar is not meant to be, of all things, mortal. Odd that mortality's bizarre failings would find even her._ )  
  
( _Odd, but..._ )  
  
( ~~ _Inconclusive._~~ )  
  
Shoulders curled, degrees more wary than her usual watchful manner, her eyes remain narrowed as in one fluid movement, she twists her legs from beneath her and drops to the floor. Now she is the High Priestess again, transformed to her true self like illusions stripped away, and she turns to face her druid, her two eyes a brilliant glow from beneath the shadow of her hood.  
  
This druid is sworn to honesty; where Haggar involves herself, he may tell no mistruths, not a single attempt to deceive. Yet strangely, when the idea of not mentioning Raht's visit slips briefly into his thoughtstream, it triggers no hard rebound against walls built of his own nature, perhaps because the visit left behind no effect of note. Instead, it twists oddly, somewhere deep in the core of his quintessence ( _in the metaphorical heart_ ), a creeping unrest at the idea that while it may not be to deceive, it would still, in a way, be _wrong._  
  
He will not do that. Not to her.  
  
The habits of formality come easy, the druid dipping his head in a bow inherited from memory. "General Raht left you a datapad." A brief mental impression conveys the pad's location, a communication stripped bare of all unnecessary thought and feeling.  
  
Her brows furrow, and Haggar turns toward the counter, but in the next tick she freezes. Logic reasserts itself suddenly in her sleep-muddled mind, and it leaves her very, _very_ still.  
  
_Yes,_ the druid confirms, but it is a useless thought, meant only for him. It will not project. _Raht was here._  
  
Haggar turns back, and the look she wears on her face is... _odd._ Her expressions are more familiar to him than any, yet this one is _too_ strange. The druid unpicks the layers of it, but he knows not what to do with them. Her look is troubled, as any who knows her would understand. Confused—but that also follows reason. Then, underneath it all, a layer exists that is carefully _too_ blank—this the druid cannot read.  
  
But it is soft... almost distant... Her eyes trail to the door, and that look blooms like a quiet nova behind them.  
  
She turns back, her eyes narrowed, hands curled.  
  
"You are dismissed," she murmurs, a familiar edge like contemplation in her voice, and _that_ cannot be disobeyed. He reacts before he thinks, turning himself to smoke and shadow and casting forth, away from here, to another part of her labs, intent only on following her will.  
  
The last he sees of her is her head bowed as she moves to retrieve the datapad, and then he is gone, the High Priestess's thoughts left to her and her alone.  
  
Whatever this circumstance, whatever the strangeness of this night, it is in a world far away from him now, his business no longer. His schedule returns to his mind, his duties foremost. He may have witnessed a a rare and incomprehensible sight, a phenomenon nigh unimaginable, but he remains a druid of the night cycle. General Raht has his purpose—even the High Priestess has hers—and he knows his own like he knows himself. Long ago, he was created for the simple task of performing what is needed. Thus he is meant for, thus he has just done. The High Priestess is woken from her vulnerable state, and she has no more cause to keep him there, but as he orients himself in the ship and drifts off down a shadowed hall, he merely goes to find where she will need him next.  
  
Still...  
  
These memories of the night he tucks away—not to share, _never_ to share, but merely to... contemplate. Surely the circumstance bears more reason.  
  
And if he thinks, wonders outside of analysis, if he _feels_...? Then that stays tucked away with the rest of the memories, somewhere deep in the metaphorical heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Good ol' Timothy, always likes to do a good job for Haggar :')
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://jade-clover.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
